Sunday, September 30. 2007

Another busy month has passed by, and it's not long before the year has passed by completely. It does seem that 2007 is flying past and it's starting to really irritate me as I cannot find any major personal accomplishment this year. There are accomplishments there, but nothing spectacular.

Lately I've watched everyone around me fall ill as we move into Autumn and finally succumbed to a particularly nasty cold about a week and a half ago that's done a fantastic job of drowning my brain-cells in snot. I still managed to take photos of a few things however, and I thought that I should once again wrap up the month using my invented word.

Life rolls on…

⚐ Apparently small road markings aren't painted on with stencils in Belgium. Here, pre-cut shapes are melted on to the road surface, which I thought was bizarre. According to the oracle this is called hot tape and is an old technique.

⚐Cranes may be such a common sight in cities these days that people have learnt to ignore them, however this little cluster prompted a photograph which unfortunately didn't quite come out as I had hoped — bloody camera phone.

⚐ While the STIB have started to focus on comfort, the new metros have seats in the end carriages that remind me of the seats in McDonald's “restaurants” from the 1980s. There's something about beige plastic seats with false wood panels that will probably always remind me of McDonald's.

⚐ Possibly the only good thing about pollution is that it can warp sunsets to the point where they can be very spectacular. I caught this one evening where the sun appeared enormous, with a rich blood-red colour. While the photo doesn't do it justice, I thought the contrast between where the sun had painted the monochrome buildings and where they were in shadow mixed sharply with the fading cyan of the sky.

⚐ You don't normally see so many baguettes being transported on a tram.

Ok, now how desperate were you for blog material that you actually posted a photo of baguettes on a metro!!! ;)

The sunset one is amazing though and totally makes up for "bread on metro".
Two nights ago, the moon was again huge, full, low in the sky and bright yellow. I even stopped the car for a gaze. I can never get enough of the moon when it’s like that.

That’s two years running now you’ve worried about no spectacular accomplishment… well it’s still only October, three whole months left. Find yourself something to accomplish so you’ll be proud of yourself.
Quite frankly I think lasting an extra year without losing one’s mind completely is accomplishment enough :)

Would you like to eat bread that’s been sliding around a tram, falling on seats that have been visited by a thousand bums, leaning against windows that are smudged from all the oily hair that’s been leaning against it?

You’re thinking of dolmuş, which is a fun experience in itself (think of it as a high-speed rollercoaster with no brakes riding through tiny side streets).

To get an idea of what a "bus" looks like in İstanbul, have a look at http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/Geography/Asia/Turkey/Istanbul/Istanbul-374.html

From a geeky perspective, I was impressed to see that a monthly/yearly ticket for many public transport services consists of an iButton on a keyring, which I’ve never seen practically used anywhere (except for Le Postiers downtown).

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